


Personae

by Mirimea



Category: The Book of Mormon - Parker/Stone/Lopez
Genre: Angst, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mugging, Non-conventional pairing, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 11:25:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5584012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirimea/pseuds/Mirimea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>”I’m fine,” Kevin says, which is obviously a lie, and he looks like he thinks it’s their fault that it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Personae

**Author's Note:**

> I posted the third chapter of Bricks and saw this in my folder and realized I never posted it here. It's an unconventional pairing & corny story idea, but if you read, I'd love to hear your thoughts. :) This is set in a vague future where they boys are back in the US and are living together.

”I’m fine,” Kevin says, which is obviously a lie, and he looks like he thinks it’s their fault that it is. He doesn’t make eye-contact with either of them, instead glaring at some undefined spot on the wall behind them.

“This is what you get for trying to be a hero,” Connor says, and Arnold thinks that his voice may be unnecessarily harsh, but he gets the feeling. He wants to take Kevin by the shoulders and shake him for putting them through all the worry, but he is not too mad to notice the wounded look on Kevin’s face at the words. And mostly, Arnold just wants to bring Kevin home and never, ever let him leave again because no matter what their boyfriend goes through, he never seems to really lose his childish belief that he is somehow both physically and spiritually invincible.

He’s an idiot, yes, but it’s difficult to be entirely mad at him when he looks so strangely tiny in the hospital bed, right arm held still by the cast, bruises discoloring his face and part of his hair shaved to accommodate for the bandage and underlying tape that the doctor had used instead of stitches.

“You are the stupidest person that I have ever had the misfortune of knowing,” Connor continues, and Arnold silently agrees, but he can also hear that Connor’s voice is shaking with the worry he had carried with him for a while now, and Kevin doesn’t look like a scolding is what he needs at the moment.

“Did they give you the good stuff?” Arnold asks, keeping his voice loud to interrupt Connor’s spiel. When Kevin looks at him blankly, he elaborates, hearing how lame his own voice is. “Painkillers, I mean.”

“I don’t know.” Kevin frowns. “Not enough.” The frown deepens, probably because he realizes that he just contradicted his statement about being okay, not that any of them had believed him in the first place. Besides, Kevin is always crabby when he is in pain, whether it is a migraine or a stubbed toe. Or, like in this case, several broken bones, bruised ribs, a wound to the head that had been deeper than any of them really felt comfortable with, multiple bruises and a concussion. Arnold winces at the mere thought of it all.

Connor sighs, his posture slumping, he seems to hesitate for a moment before sitting down on the side of the hospital bed, leaving Arnold as the only one to stand awkwardly on the side. “When you see someone get robbed, you call the police. Not… whatever it was you did.” He looks tired, and Arnold wants to put a hand on his shoulder, but he thinks Connor may be too high-strung to really appreciate it at the moment.

“I think I told them to stop,” Kevin mutters, and has the grace to sound vaguely sheepish. He looks up at Arnold, as though asking for support. “I don’t remember it clearly.”

Arnold shrugs. “Hey, I’m with him on this.” He motions to Connor, but then tries to offer him a reassuring smile. He’s the one in the hospital bed, after all, and that has got to suck. “Just… don’t do it again, okay?”

Kevin sighs, seems to sink deeper back into his pillows, and Arnold’s chest aches over how utterly defeated he looks at that moment. “I think I learned my lesson.”

It seems to weaken the last remaining crumbs of Connor’s worried anger as well, and he puts his hand over Kevin’s undamaged one that is resting on top of the sheets. “Just rest, okay?”

“Yeah,” Kevin says, and looks at Connor, then up at Arnold again, face strangely blank, and there’s really no more room around the hospital bed, but Arnold desperate wants to hug him. But that is probably not recommended either way, because Kevin kind of looks like a porcelain doll that is susceptible to break at any moment. It is entirely strange considering the fact that Kevin is usually the tallest and strongest out of the three of them.

But then, the last couple of days have been weird altogether, and Arnold thinks that the world seems to have shifted, lost its structures and its straight right angles. He doesn’t like it.

~*~

Arnold’s not good at emergencies, so it’s really quite idiotic that _he_ is Kevin’s emergency contact, Thankfully, Connor is home with him when the hospital calls him on his cellphone, because while Arnold is both mentally and vocally freaking out, Connor takes a deep breath and forces both of them onto the next bus to the hospital. In retrospect Arnold feels bad about it, because Connor had been as stressed out as Arnold had, he’d just been better at managing it and Arnold hadn’t helped at all.

Kevin is unconscious when they arrive, but the hospital staff has already stitched him up and they are allowed to see him. He looks pale against the white hospital sheets, and Connor takes one look at the shaved side of Kevin’s head and promptly looks like he wants to cry.

“He’s going to hate that,” he says, and Arnold is forced to agree, both because it does look pretty pitiful and because he _knows_ Kevin.

There’s no point in waiting for him to wake up; the staff tells them that Kevin is most likely going to be out of it for a while yet. Instead they manage to gather enough information to get a picture of what had happened, and no one really asks why it’s the two of them there and not a girlfriend, or a parent. But maybe the staff just thinks that they are three close friends, not something… else.

Arnold is not good at emergencies, but he’s good at being in love, at least. It had come automatically with Kevin, as hero worship at first, then a crush, then once they became friends for real, something more. He hadn’t been forced to fight for Kevin’s attention back then the way Connor had done; Kevin had given it freely and it had been intoxicating because people had never really paid attention to Arnold before. Then, Connor had been able to penetrate Kevin’s defenses as well, rendering him flustered but titillated, and Arnold could have been jealous, except he’s pretty good at liking people, he thinks, and Connor is pretty likable, overall, so it had worked out well in the end.

Thank God for love.

~*~

“No, the ribs aren’t broken, just bruised,” Kevin says into the receiver of the standard hospital phone from the bedside table. “Mom, you really don’t have to do that, it’s fine, I promise.”

Arnold glances up at his face for a second, Kevin’s brows are furrowed but he doesn’t look as annoyed as he sounds, then he looks back down at the masterpiece that he is creating on Kevin’s cast. He had even brought a reference picture with him to the hospital this morning, of Han Solo, gun raised and ready to protect Arnold’s boyfriend from any new attackers. Further down, near Kevin’s hand, Connor is scribbling things in pink and yellow, flowers and hearts. Between the two of them, the finished product will probably look somewhat schizophrenic, but it’ll reflect the two of them pretty well, Arnold thinks.

“I got the flowers, thanks.”

Kevin’s bedside table is filled with flowers and cards, even from people they don’t really know, because a newspaper had gotten hold of the story and through some not so subtle mentions of his sexual orientation, managed to make it look like a hate crime rather than a robbery gone wrong. Apparently, that’s something that the general public loves to read about, never mind that Kevin is mostly just pissed about the whole thing.

“No, they’re taking care of me just fine.” A pause, then a somewhat frustrated sigh. “ _Mom_.”

Arnold looks up, at the same time as Connor. Their eyes meet, then they look down at their masterpieces again.

“I know. Yes. I love you too.”

Kevin carefully leans over the hospital bed to hang up the receiver of the standard hospital phone; Arnold has to stop drawing for a moment as the cast moves.

“How was your mother?” Connor asks pleasantly, capping the pink pen. “I’m done.”

Kevin tries to look, but Arnold’s head is in the way, so he leans back against his pillows instead. “Fine. Just worried. She wanted to come here, but I told her she didn’t have to.”

“Well. We were worried too.”

“I know.” Kevin’s voice is mild, perhaps a bit embarrassed, or maybe even grateful. It’s difficult to tell. Arnold finishes the final details on Solo’s boots, then caps the pencil and raises his head.

“There, done!”

They admire Kevin’s newly decorated cast for a moment. Then, when Arnold looks up, he realizes that Kevin is smiling with his eyes fastened on him and not the cast. It looks a little strange on his bruised face, but good.

“It looks great. Thank you.”

Arnold hasn’t dared to touch him much after the incident, afraid that he might cause him unnecessary pain. It’s difficult, because he always kind of gravitates towards Kevin, but now he can’t help himself and leans in, just giving him a peck on the cheek. Kevin scrunches his nose up, but not from pain as much as it is his general response to Arnold being touchy-feely. Then Arnold feels a hand on his shoulder and he moves aside to let Connor have his turn as well. Connor is equally quick, placing his peck on Kevin’s nose, probably just because he _can_ , and it is sweet to see. But his fingertips graze over the part of Kevin’s head that is shaved, carefully avoiding the tape, and it reminds Arnold of how Kevin looks almost lop-sided like that, of the fact that Kevin is most likely still in actual physical, real pain.

And Arnold has never _really_ understood the word bittersweet before, but he thinks that this moment might be it.

~*~

They get help reporting the incident to the police, even though Arnold notices that Kevin is almost reluctant to speak about it, whether it is because it’s unsettling to him or because he is embarrassed; Arnold doesn’t know. Either way, they’ll simply have to wait and see if anything comes from it, which, apparently, is not very likely.

And Kevin gets to go home only a couple of days later, though he moves slowly, like an old man, and grimaces when he carefully folds himself into the cab. Connor is at work, so only Arnold is there to help him and carry his things.

“God, I’m sick of this,” Kevin sighs when he finally gets to sink down on their own couch in their own tiny apartment while Arnold simply lets his bags down on the floor and joins him.

“Yeah,” Arnold agrees. He has a lot of reading to do for his classes, but no lecture until next week. Kevin, on the other hand, has been excused from his courses this semester and is pretty much on an extended Christmas break already (lucky bastard, except yeah, maybe not really). He turns on the couch to face his boyfriend. “Want to watch a movie?”

“Like what?”

“Lord of the Rings?” Kevin looks at him blankly; Arnold tries again. “The newest Star Trek? Ghostbusters?” Finally he sighs, but it’s more like routine at this point. “Homeward Bound?”

One corner of Kevin’s mouth tilts up. He pokes Arnold’s arm with his good hand. “Good suggestion.”

And Arnold grins back because he actually likes the movie, almost as much as Kevin does, and also because it’s good to see Kevin smile. That had been a thing for him, even back in Uganda, because Arnold had sort of been starved for friendship and it had been so startling, almost breathtaking once Kevin had started to smile at him for real. Like Arnold had actually been worthy to receive the admiration from this handsome, charismatic, awesome guy.

Forty minutes into the movie, Kevin falls asleep, head tilted back at what must be an uncomfortable angle, but Arnold doesn’t have the heart to wake him. It’s worrying, how little Kevin is complaining about all this, because Arnold knows from years of experience that every time Kevin gets as much as the slightest hint of a cold, he’ll never let anyone forget about it. But Connor says to give it time, and really, there is not much else they can do about it, anyway.

~*~

“You got beat up and left on the street.” The words somehow penetrate Arnold’s consciousness until he realizes that he is awake and that it is Connor’s voice, quiet and soothing despite the blunt statement. “It’s okay to be afraid.”

Groggily, Arnold turns in their bed and realizes that his bedmates are off to the other side, an unusual amount of space between him and them. Kevin usually sleeps in the middle because he’s always been their common ground, but with his broken arm and lingering soreness, it is easier to let him have his own space on one of the sides. Connor has taken over the middle spot for the time being, which is strange but also nice because he doesn’t snore like Kevin does and he doesn’t fight for the covers the way he and Kevin usually do until Connor sighs and tells them to stop acting like children.

Now, Arnold shuffles closer to where Connor is leaning over Kevin. It’s difficult to make out any details through the darkness, but he thinks that Kevin might be shaking, his body still in the somewhat awkward position he sleeps in at the moment to avoid jostling his broken arm.

“But there’s nothing I’m afraid of,” he hears Kevin mutter. His voice is unsteady, as though he is trying to catch his breath.

“Shh. Come here.” Connor is using his best soothing voice and it sounds like he’s talking to a child, but it’s so gentle and caring that Arnold feels his own heart flutter, and he’s not even the actual recipient of it.

But Kevin’s body twists, as though he’s trying to raise himself onto an elbow before he remembers that the necessary limb is still in a cast. “Where’s Arnold?”

Arnold sits up. “I’m right here, buddy.” He clumsily moves off the edge of the bed and walks around it hurriedly; the room is _cold,_ like he’s never gotten used to the NYC climate after returning to the States. “Here, move over.”

They do, until there’s room for Arnold to squeeze himself under the covers on the other side of Kevin. He struggles into a comfortable position, snuggling close to Kevin’s back and resting an arm over his waist; Kevin’s body is stiff, still trembling slightly, and Arnold tries to mentally will him to relax, pressing his nose against his neck. On Kevin’s other side Connor is snuggling close as well, and Arnold thinks that within a few minutes Kevin is probably going to be unbearably warm, but he’s not protesting.

In time, Kevin stops trembling and they don’t speak further of it; instead, they go back to sleep.

~*~

Arnold has always liked the thought of being a hero. He got a taste of it back in Uganda, but in retrospect it has never felt quite real. It had been sweet, but in the end he had always been able to step back and rely on Kevin and Connor to deal with the consequences of things. That’s just the way things are for them.

But things change. Arnold is only very rarely the first one to wake up, but this morning he does, and it gives him the unusual opportunity to study his boyfriends while they’re still asleep. Kevin’s lips are parted as he breathes heavily, the least bruised side of his head pressed into the pillow while his shaved spot and the tape is revealed. On the other side of him, Connor is snuggled close and has in his sleep tucked his head beneath Kevin’s chin, red hair mussed, and the sight makes something compress painfully in Arnold’s chest, because the one thing he really wants right now is to be able to protect these two guys, protect them from everything.


End file.
